The fifth day on Sardinia and the trip to Cala Luna. Cala Luna (= “Moon Cove” in English) is a famous cove and beach located not far to the south from Cala Gonone. It’s not accessible by car and that’s why I had originally thought that there would not be too many people. Later I saw how naive that assumption was…
Cala Luna
Today’s journey to the starting point was quite short, we set out from Cala Gonone camp at 9:26 and just after 25 minutes we got to the parking lot located at 45 m ASL above the Caletta Fuili cove. The way there is very straightforward – the only road leading to the south from Cala Gonone ends there…
After parking the car (it took us some time, it was quite full…), we started descending down to the bottom of the cove. We went along it to its southern side and started to climb up to the hills there…
There we met some guy, sitting in the chair under the tree. “Hello, going to Cala Luna?”, he asked. When I nodded, he said: “That’s quite a difficult hike.” Then he told us, that his company offered boat shuttle to and from Cala Luna. “It’s a good service.”, he repeated many times, explaining that while there were some other companies providing transport from Cala Luna to Cala Gonone, they were the only one offering rides also back here to Caletta Fuili. He also added that the boat ride normally costed 10 Euro, but just this day (what a coincidence) it costed only 5 Euro.
Parking above Caletta Fuili
Since he also said that (if we were interested) we had to buy the tickets now, from him, I wanted to politely said him good-bye, but my dad decided it would be good to go back by boat and bought the tickets.
After saying good-bye to the guy, we continued in our way. Path led near the coast, but often across various hills and valleys… The hills weren’t very high, but since it was once again very hot, the journey was quite exhausting. In the meantime my dream about empty beach vanished, because during the whole way we could see (and hear) a lot of ships and boats, all of them heading in one direction…:-)
Fifteen minutes before the noon we passed around a small cave called Grotta Oddoana and not too long after that we started descending down to Cala Luna. It’s really a beautiful cove, so I wasn’t surprised at all to see a beach full of people and a lot of boats anchored near the coast. After some time we managed to find some spot to put our stuff and went swimming. It was really great, IMO the cove was so far the best place for swimming on Sardinia (later we found one even better place).
Cala Luna beach
We were swimming, sunbathing and relaxing on the beach until 2 p.m. Then we went along the beach to the small mull on the right side of the cove and waited there for shuttle to Calleta Fuili, that should leave at 2:30.
We were standing there at 2:30, 2:40, 2:45 and still nothing… At 14:50 I thought that the guy at Caletta Fuili just scammed us… But later I learnt I wronged him. His company had some problem with one of their boats and so they had to send another one for us. Finally the boat (small rubber one) arrived, we got into it and driver started the engine…
Cruise to Caletta Fuili was really scary. The driver was probably in the hurry, so he ignored all the waves and was jumping over them at speed 45 km/h! I had originally thought I’d take photos during the ride, so I had my camera ready, but at the end I was just tightly holding the rope on the side of the boat and praying (even though I’m an atheist) not to fall out of the boat. I took just a few photos, but none of them is very good – mostly because I was holding my camera just in one hand.
After 7 minutes we arrived to the beach at Caletta Fuili. The cruise was quite scary for me, but I liked it a lot – the adrenaline was definitely worth those 5 Euro! We said “ciao” to the driver and ascended back to the parking lot above the cove…
As usally, here’s a link to the GPX file containing the track record. Just two warnings: 1) in one point the track record is a little off because on the beach we sat under the rock cliff… 2) the way Cala Luna -> Calleta Fuili was recorded during the boat ride…
| Start/finish |
Main POI |
Distance |
Max. elevation |
Min. elevation |
Download link |
| Caletta Fuili |
Cala Luna |
9.8 km |
123 m |
0 m |
link |
You can also look at the elevation diagram of the track (generated by GPS altimeter and processed by Garmin Basemap application). Please click to the miniature to see the diagram in a full size.
Elevation diagram – trip to Cala Luna (and back by boat)
And last but not least here’s the list of some important waypoints. You can download all of them in one GPX file.
| Name |
Description |
Approx. Elev. |
Latitude |
Longitude |
| CALETTA FUILI |
Parking place above Caletta Fuili cove |
45 m |
N 40° 15.419′ |
E 9° 37.512′ |
| GROTTA ODDOANA |
Grotta Oddoana cave |
54 m |
N 40° 14.094′ |
E 9° 37.290′ |
| CALA LUNA |
Cala Luna cove |
0 m |
N 40° 13.480′ |
E 9° 37.610′ |
Sardinia 2010 – Cala Luna (21st July)
The fifth day on Sardinia and the trip to Cala Luna. Cala Luna (= “Moon Cove” in English) is a famous cove and beach located not far to the south from Cala Gonone. It’s not accessible by car and that’s why I had originally thought that there would not be too many people. Later I saw how naive that assumption was…
Cala Luna
Today’s journey to the starting point was quite short, we set out from Cala Gonone camp at 9:26 and just after 25 minutes we got to the parking lot located at 45 m ASL above the Caletta Fuili cove. The way there is very straightforward – the only road leading to the south from Cala Gonone ends there…
After parking the car (it took us some time, it was quite full…), we started descending down to the bottom of the cove. We went along it to its southern side and started to climb up to the hills there…
There we met some guy, sitting in the chair under the tree. “Hello, going to Cala Luna?”, he asked. When I nodded, he said: “That’s quite a difficult hike.” Then he told us, that his company offered boat shuttle to and from Cala Luna. “It’s a good service.”, he repeated many times, explaining that while there were some other companies providing transport from Cala Luna to Cala Gonone, they were the only one offering rides also back here to Caletta Fuili. He also added that the boat ride normally costed 10 Euro, but just this day (what a coincidence) it costed only 5 Euro.
Parking above Caletta Fuili
Since he also said that (if we were interested) we had to buy the tickets now, from him, I wanted to politely said him good-bye, but my dad decided it would be good to go back by boat and bought the tickets.
After saying good-bye to the guy, we continued in our way. Path led near the coast, but often across various hills and valleys… The hills weren’t very high, but since it was once again very hot, the journey was quite exhausting. In the meantime my dream about empty beach vanished, because during the whole way we could see (and hear) a lot of ships and boats, all of them heading in one direction…:-)
Fifteen minutes before the noon we passed around a small cave called Grotta Oddoana and not too long after that we started descending down to Cala Luna. It’s really a beautiful cove, so I wasn’t surprised at all to see a beach full of people and a lot of boats anchored near the coast. After some time we managed to find some spot to put our stuff and went swimming. It was really great, IMO the cove was so far the best place for swimming on Sardinia (later we found one even better place).
Cala Luna beach
We were swimming, sunbathing and relaxing on the beach until 2 p.m. Then we went along the beach to the small mull on the right side of the cove and waited there for shuttle to Calleta Fuili, that should leave at 2:30.
We were standing there at 2:30, 2:40, 2:45 and still nothing… At 14:50 I thought that the guy at Caletta Fuili just scammed us… But later I learnt I wronged him. His company had some problem with one of their boats and so they had to send another one for us. Finally the boat (small rubber one) arrived, we got into it and driver started the engine…
Cruise to Caletta Fuili was really scary. The driver was probably in the hurry, so he ignored all the waves and was jumping over them at speed 45 km/h! I had originally thought I’d take photos during the ride, so I had my camera ready, but at the end I was just tightly holding the rope on the side of the boat and praying (even though I’m an atheist) not to fall out of the boat. I took just a few photos, but none of them is very good – mostly because I was holding my camera just in one hand.
After 7 minutes we arrived to the beach at Caletta Fuili. The cruise was quite scary for me, but I liked it a lot – the adrenaline was definitely worth those 5 Euro! We said “ciao” to the driver and ascended back to the parking lot above the cove…
As usally, here’s a link to the GPX file containing the track record. Just two warnings: 1) in one point the track record is a little off because on the beach we sat under the rock cliff… 2) the way Cala Luna -> Calleta Fuili was recorded during the boat ride…
You can also look at the elevation diagram of the track (generated by GPS altimeter and processed by Garmin Basemap application). Please click to the miniature to see the diagram in a full size.
Elevation diagram – trip to Cala Luna (and back by boat)
And last but not least here’s the list of some important waypoints. You can download all of them in one GPX file.